In the next few weeks HotS will be getting it's biggest update since it launched.

The game play/mechanics aren't changing, what they are changing quite a bit is player progression and they are adding loot chests full of new skins, banners, sprays and emotes (thanks Overwatch)

I've been playing since launch and the game is in a pretty good place right now, matchmaking is vastly improved from where it was a year ago.

HotS was my favorite MOBA. It's a shame it can be hard to get back into a game like this, so many new heroes and maps to learn, plus all the reworks can make going back to old favorites a bit tough. My computer has been unable to play games for a while, but I'm finally putting together a new one, so maybe I'll add HotS to the long list of games I want to play again.

Yeah, this stuff looks great. Been wanting to dive back in for a while. Most enjoyable MOBA I've played for sure.

Is this game good? Kinda looking for a game to play on my new MacBook Pro 2016 model. It's a pretty powerful machine, but definitely not a graphics power house. Can play WoW pretty good.

@toopopplio

I play on a gaming pc, but when I'm travelling I'll play some HotS on my 2011 MacBook on low settings. Yours should run fine.

Have you played a MOBA before? When I started playing in November I had never played one. I was always intimidated. HotS is really easy to learn, but with quite a lot of depth as well. I'd say give it a go, especially considering it's free to play. If you have someone that you can play with it really improves the experience.

@fatcat222: Never touched a MOBA. Kinda not thrilled about the initial learning curve, and I've hard the communities tend to be quite toxic. But the way Blizzard refines games has already appealed to me, so I might just check it out.

How's the community now? The last time I played it (shortly after launch) I had jerks yelling at me in the chat while I was trying to learn the game. I wouldn't mind if they were helpful and told me how to improve, but they were just yelling that I was playing wrong. I know the basics (don't feed, play your character's role, etc.) but the community really turned me off trying to learn more.

@cameron: sigh, so it's become like every other damn moba then. that's the internet for you. be a pro right out the gate or go home.

there was a gb channel i believe, not sure how active now. gb duders are very welcoming and helpful from my limited experience.

i did think this would be the one moba for me but i as well fell off.

I don't know why but lootboxes annoy me for some reason....

I used to be super into the game back in alpha and the closed beta. Seemed like a couple months after it went into open beta the community got filled with a bunch of jerks like the usual moba scene. Even with a more casual game it seemed like every other match I played had people insisting it was their way or the highway. Sadly it wasn't even better for people who did know how to play the meta. There was always some John Doe out there who did something against the teams wishes and then threw the game when you didn't go along with him. The game was fun back when there were people willing to exchange ideas and work out what the team wanted to try. Guess that can't last forever once you open the floodgates and let the entire moba community into the game.

Its nice to see they're still putting effort into the game. Unfortunately I just don't think the genre is for me in the long term.

I've played a couple hundred hours of dota 2, but don't have the time to keep up and this game scratches the moba itch very nicely without requiring you to commit nearly all your free time to getting good.

My friend and I played a good bit of this back when they were having an event for an Overwatch skin, which was sometime this winter. Even during that timed event it typically took us ten minutes or more to find each match. It seemed like either the matchmaking was busted as hell or the playerbase was dead. Either way, it basically ruined the game for us.

For Reference: I play about 4 to 5 matches almost each day. The community can be bad, but of all the MOBA-Style games it's probably the least toxic. The good thing is you can just disable chat, the worst you'll get that way is "agressive" pings.

Regarding the update: No matter how your feelings are about loot boxes, it seems like a better way to do it than the game has right now. After you reach the max account level there is almost no progression besides leveling up individual characters. This way at least you have some cosmetic stuff you get every now and then.

Btw. the Giantbomb-channel is pretty much dead in the game. But if there are some duders who want to team up, I'd love to play with some chill people, maybe even tackle team league :)

@nnickers: It rarely takes me more than a minute to find a game, I don't know why you were having such long queue times.

This is probably my favorite MOBA, but after playing Dota 2 for 40 hours or so I completely swore off of playing games like this with a full team of randoms, and so I've only played bot matches in HotS. If I have three or four friends with me to outnumber the randoms then it's not too bad, but playing with a full team of them is just a nightmare that makes the whole experience feel like a waste of time and energy.

Me and a friend have been playing since they did that Genji Skin event. I was always a bit turned off the genre because I've never really played RTS'es so the controls were an extra hurdle. I knew some Warcraft and Diablo lore though, so seeing some familiar faces, as well as the event encouraging us to put the time in, got me mostly used to them.

Now it has replaced Overwatch as the game me and my friend play together. It's just takes way less out of you, with far less angles to consider, I can even listen to a podcast while playing it. It also adds new stuff at a more pleasant pace.

I'm not...really excited about this 2.0 thing. It just seems like mostly extra clutter, both when it comes to the new cosmetics and the added currencies. Calling it 2.0 seems like more of a stunt than anything substantially meaningfull as well. It's not gonna make me stop playing the game, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Another friend I have, have apparently been playing off and on since the beginning and he seems excited, at least.

Yooo I'm in it to win it with 2.0.

I haven't played since early 2016 but jumping back in. Please add me if you want a friend to play with.

Bemusedchunk#1555